“It was the autumn of 1943 when my steady life began to spin, not only because of the war that had drawn the whole world into a screaming brawl, but also because of the dark-hearted girl who came to our hills and changed everything.” 

Here, Wolk juxtaposes the wartime terror that is enveloping the globe with the more local, yet no less bitter, conflict that afflicts Annabelle’s rural community. The phrase “dark-hearted girl” stands out for its opposition of the word “girl,” which connotes lightness and innocence, and “dark-hearted,” which suggests evil. As the reader comes to the end of the book, they have to decide whether Betty was the root of evil who did indeed change everything, or whether she only stirred tensions that were already present in the hills.

“At times, I was so confused that I felt like the stem of a pinwheel surrounded by whir and clatter, but through that whole unsettling time I knew that it would not do to hide in the barn with a book and an apple and let events plunge forward without me.” 

Annabelle here relates that she learns the meaning of personal responsibility during the difficult time that engulfs her community. The simile where she compares herself to “the stem of a pinwheel” indicates that events are moving so quickly that she experiences a loss of control and that developments progress against her will. 

“A wolf is not a dog and never will be […] no matter how you raise it.” 

When Annabelle’s grandfather tells her that Wolf Hollow was named for the wolf-trapping pits of their ancestors, she questions why the wolves could not have been tamed and raised as dogs. Her grandfather answers that wolves and dogs are fundamentally different, and no amount of nurture will make a wolf resemble a dog. Later, as Annabelle begins to befriend and understand Toby, the lone wolf of the community, she will learn this lesson for herself—that some creatures are not suited to the settled lives of agrarian communities.